What foods are high in selenium? I've been told this mineral may help prevent arthritis. Research presented in November at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology showed that people with low selenium levels were more prone to osteoarthritis. Brazil nuts are the richest food source of this mineral, with 544 micrograms an ounce. Don't overdo, though. More than 400 micrograms of selenium daily may be excessive.

October 11, 2011 | By Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times / For the Booster Shots blog

Taking vitamin E and selenium supplements not only failed to prevent prostate cancer in men, a new study finds that daily vitamin E pills appear to raise the risk of the disease. The study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. , is yet another reminder that the effect of dietary supplements on health isn't always rewarding or even innocuous. The SELECT study (which stands for Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial) began in 2001 and recruited more than 35,000 men age 50 and older at 400 study sites nationwide.

Higher than normal levels of selenium were found in food crops in parts of the western San Joaquin Valley and pose a hazard if the valley's irrigation drainage problems are not resolved, a UC Davis report warned. Contributing to the problem, said UC agricultural researchers, were salinity and drainage complications, allowing the mineral to remain in shallow ground water.

In the wake of the deaths of 21 prized polo horses, the United States Polo Assn. says it will announce today plans to provide additional protections for its animals. The announcement is expected after today's USPA Board of Governors meeting in Wellington. A spokeswoman for the organization did not provide any specifics of what is being considered, but there has been much discussion about the treatment of polo horses since the deaths last weekend.

Birds in the Tulare Lake basin are being poisoned by nesting and feeding at farm water evaporation ponds containing dangerous levels of selenium, according to a new federal study released Tuesday. Numerous comparisons between Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge and the 398-acre Westfarmers evaporation ponds near Lost Hills are contained in the Department of Interior report.

Microbes are removing selenium from contaminated soil on a test plot at the polluted Kesterson Reservoir, a finding that may lead to a full-scale cleanup of the area. Preliminary studies show that the microbes can remove at least two-thirds of the selenium from the polluted earth, UC Riverside agronomist William Frankenberger is scheduled to tell a meeting of the American Chemical Society here today.

Toxic levels of selenium that killed and deformed waterfowl and wildlife at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in Merced County have dropped dramatically during the last year in four experimental ponds, a team of California scientists reported Tuesday. The findings suggest that there may be an economical way to clean up Kesterson, as well as other wildlife refuges across the country that are also threatened by selenium, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said.

High levels of selenium are suspected of being a cause in the deaths of 150,000 eared grebes earlier this year at the Salton Sea in one of the worst bird die-offs ever, U.S. Fish and Wildlife scientists say. Selenium, a trace mineral more toxic than arsenic, drew national attention a decade ago when it was blamed for thousands of bird deaths and deformities at Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in the San Joaquin Valley.

About 16 duck-hunting clubs in western Merced County are using selenium-tainted drainage water to raise crops and water marshes in the dry summers, Grasslands Water District officials said. Water district officials are urging state and federal wildlife agencies to penalize the duck clubs for using the tainted drain water, which could pose a serious threat to reproductive systems of migratory waterfowl.

Wildly fluctuating test results have indicated alarmingly high levels of selenium in waters of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, it was disclosed Thursday. Although state officials said they do not believe the levels to be a public health threat, they nevertheless are warning municipal water users of the California Water Project to monitor water supplies used for drinking closely.

Selenium dietary supplements may raise a person's risk of developing diabetes, not lower it as had been suspected, researchers reported Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. People who took a 200-microgram daily dose of the mineral for seven years had a 50% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared with the placebo, the study found. About 60% of Americans take multivitamins, most of which include 33 to 200 micrograms of selenium. In the U.S.

Giving selenium, an antioxidant mineral sold as a dietary supplement, to HIV patients modestly reduced the amount of virus in their blood, according to a study published Monday. Patients taking 200 micrograms of high selenium yeast daily saw an average 12% drop in blood virus levels, according to the study in the Archives of Internal Medicine. "I liken selenium to a lion tamer in a circus," said lead author Barry Hurwitz, a professor of psychology and medicine at the University of Miami.

A dozen wild bird eggs plucked from nests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley show how easily things can go awry when trying to clean up the region's tainted farm drainage. The eggs, collected last year in fields that are part of a treatment project, contained the same lethal levels of selenium that poisoned migrating waterfowl more than two decades ago at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge near Los Banos.

What foods are high in selenium? I've been told this mineral may help prevent arthritis. Research presented in November at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology showed that people with low selenium levels were more prone to osteoarthritis. Brazil nuts are the richest food source of this mineral, with 544 micrograms an ounce. Don't overdo, though. More than 400 micrograms of selenium daily may be excessive.

Whether you get enough of the essential trace mineral selenium may depend, in part, on where you live. Research suggests that people who live in areas with low soil selenium levels (which affect the amount that gets into plants) have higher rates of some types of cancers. * Uses: Selenium contains antioxidants that could help protect the body from free-radical damage. It may also promote better functioning of the immune system and thyroid gland.

Something strange is happening to rodents at a wildlife refuge where thousands of birds were poisoned by selenium years ago. Both male and female reproductive organs were found in one-third of the 87 field mice, house mice, harvest mice and California voles trapped last year on land that once collected toxic runoff at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge. Just 3% of rodents trapped there showed such characteristics in 1995.

Officials in the federal government and Western states are reviewing potential selenium-related human health risks found in a seven-month newspaper study, it was reported Thursday. In articles published Sunday and Monday, the Sacramento Bee reported evidence of toxic levels of the trace element selenium in the basic food supply of millions of Americans.

A new federal study says toxic levels of the mineral selenium--higher than those found in birds at Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge--have been found in birds nesting at the Grassland Water District, a large collection of duck clubs in the western San Joaquin Valley. The federal Fish and Wildlife Service study reinforces an earlier theory that selenium contamination affects migratory waterfowl habitats throughout a large part of the San Joaquin Valley.

Eating foods rich in the trace mineral selenium may help men ward off advanced prostate cancer, a new report suggests. A study of 33,737 men found that "higher selenium levels were associated with a reduced risk of advanced prostate cancer," researchers from Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate cancer causes nearly 40,000 deaths annually in the U.S.

The immense flatland on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, like a beguiling trickster, has found a way to defy even the will of America's cotton kings. Even as their endless fields stand out as testament to the marvels of industrial agriculture, a toxic dose of selenium and other salts collects in the thick clay underground. A byproduct of irrigating land that was once ocean bottom, the contaminated water must be siphoned off to huge drainage ponds. If not, the cotton fields would wither.